


Hawthorn

by fightingtheblankpage



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Brainwashing, Child Abduction, F/M, Freeform, Gen, Nonlinear Narration, Off-screen Character Death, Psychological Trauma, Witch!Lydia, Witch!Stiles, dark au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-06 03:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightingtheblankpage/pseuds/fightingtheblankpage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia Martin gets whatever she wants. Nobody says "no" to the daughter of the head of the Martin Coven. And what she wants is to steal Stiles away, turning him into the companion of her teenage years. Stiles doesn't understand coven loyalty, but he can be loyal to Lydia. At least up to the point when the choice he has to make is between Lydia and his own father, now a Sheriff in a town called Beacon Hills, under the rule of Peter Hale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe [Elizabeth](http://archiveofourown.org/users/eak_a_mouse/pseuds/eak_a_mouse) managed to make me turn one sentence into a full story, beta-read said story, and face my daily breakdowns over everything. Wow. Thank you doesn't begin to cover it. 
> 
> Now, as you can see, this is a WIP. I know how it's going to go, but some details will change. That being said, I'll add warnings when the specific chapter appears. The list of characters is more or less what you can expect in the first two-three chapters, some minor additions will be made. 
> 
> Please note that almost all characters undergo psychological trauma of some sort, and are subjects to manipulation. 
> 
> Additional notes and acknowledgements at the end of the chapter.

**_iii._ **

What’s missing from Stiles’ room is a backpack and some clothes. What’s there is a mouldy sandwich on a delicate china plate. Lydia kicks at the covers spilling from the unmade bed to the bare floor, swings the closet door open and slams it shut, and then she circles back to the desk.

What’s missing from Stiles’ room is **_Stiles_**. Lydia looks at the bread, watches it turn green and soft, collapse like a small structure, until there are maggots crawling through it, small white creatures, slick and agile. Lydia picks the fine plate up between two fingers and smashes it on the floor, into a myriad of pale blue shards. With the toe of her expensive shoe, Lydia squashes the worms, one after another; her lips pressed into an angry line. She **_told_** Stiles not to leave food in his room. If he were here, she’d leave the maggots to crawl all over his things, to teach him a lesson.

He’s not here.

Watching their ripe bodies break doesn’t make Lydia feel better, but there is a certain satisfaction in hearing the wet, organic **_pop_**. She wipes her shoe on Stiles’ jersey, which had fallen off his desk chair, in petulant retaliation, before marching out of the room with an irritated huff and a quick click of heels on hardwood.

Right now, there are just two people in the Martin house:  Lydia and her mom. Stiles is gone, which is the core of the problem. Lydia’s dad hasn’t been living with them for years now, and Lydia usually doesn’t even answer his invitations to spend the weekend at his place. There are no coven meetings scheduled for the upcoming days, so there are no witches in the guestrooms, either. Lydia doesn’t want to say she’s been outsmarted, but she has to admit, Stiles planned it out well.

What did she expect? She wouldn’t have taken him in the first place if he weren’t smart. And what he lacked in some departments, he’s learnt from her.

Lydia’s mom’s in her study, just like Lydia expects her to be. She works a lot – between being the head of the coven and taking care of the Martin’s business, she spends very little time **_outside_** the study. There are very few rules Lydia has to obey, since she’s the second most important person in the coven, but she must always, always knock on the study door. Her mom doesn’t like being interrupted.

So Lydia knocks, and waits for her mom to call, “Come in,” through the door. Just from those two words Lydia can tell that her mom already knows, and that she isn’t happy. Lydia flicks her hair over her shoulder and opens the door.

The study smells like wood polish and her mom’s hand sanitizer. Lydia’s sixteen now, but the smell still reminds her of when she was a little girl and not allowed to get her hands on the bookshelves lining three out of four walls. She’s read most of the books since then, and some of them, she knows by heart – history books and grimoires, but also books about physics, and complicated science texts explaining how the world works. Her mom insisted that Lydia needs to be able to put science and magic side by side, and see reality as the effect of the two forces colliding. Lydia is good with science, and she’s good with magic.

Lydia’s mom’s sitting behind the desk, typing away on the laptop. She peers at Lydia through her reading glasses, and then looks down at the monitor again.  Lydia sighs and drops into the chair pushed opposite the desk, and crosses her legs. This is where  the people who have business with her mom are asked to sit, and also where Lydia has to sit when they’re having **_A Talk_** , capital letters.

“And?” her mom prompts finally, when Lydia just plays with a curl of her hair, twisting it around her finger and watching it bounce back into position.

“Stiles is gone,” Lydia says unhappily.

Her mom finally looks at her with full attention. It’s not a pleasant look. “I know,” she says. “He’s your responsibility, Lydia. You wanted to keep him. You wanted to teach him. You said he isn’t going to be trouble.”

“I know,” Lydia says, unintentionally mimicking her mom’s tone. “And he wasn’t trouble, for five years! How was I supposed to know he was going to‒ I don’t know why he ran away. He seemed **_fine_**. I talked to him yesterday.”

“Clearly he wasn’t fine,” her mom says, and Lydia flinches a little. She hates being told she’s wrong; she hates **_being_** wrong, for that matter. “I’m assuming you realise we can’t let him roam free. He knows too much about the coven. What are you going to do about it?”

“I could use a tracking spell,” Lydia says quickly. “I’m not sure if it’ll work, since he may be hiding himself‒”

“I **_hope_** he is,” her mom says. “If you taught him anything at all, it should be the basics.”

“I’ll think of something. I’ll find him before he does something stupid.”

“He already did something stupid by running away,” her mom says. Her eyes flicker to the laptop screen, like she’s already anxious to deal with whatever work she’s got piling up. But the she catches Lydia’s expression, which is worried and uneasy, and her eyes – exactly the same colour as Lydia’s – go softer. “Just bring Stiles back, Lydia. You understand the sort of trouble it will cause all of us if he reaches someone who may want to learn our secrets. If another coven snatches him. It’s not just we who are in danger. He is, too.”

Lydia twists her hands, pouts in the general direction of her lap. Yes, she understands it. Her loyalties lie with her coven, first and foremost, but she also grew fond of Stiles. She liked him from the start, really; she wouldn’t have asked her mom to let her keep him otherwise. She always knew, on some level, that he was going to cause trouble. Just not like this. She thought he **_liked_** her. He had always followed her around like an obedient puppy.

“What about his father?” her mom asks placatingly. “Don’t you think if he was to run away, he’d run away to him?”

“I thought you had him killed,” Lydia says honestly. She wasn’t very interested in the **_how_** part of making Stiles a part of their coven, back when they were kids. But she remembers that he still had a father, and that her mom explained to her that this father would always look for Stiles.

“We needed him for leverage,” her mom explains, “in case Stiles was problematic. We still keep tabs on him. He’s a Sheriff now, in a small town in California.”

Lydia nods, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward. “We know where I should start looking, then.”

**_i._ **

Her arm is sprained, not broken, but it’s still the most painful thing Lydia’s ever experienced. Her mom takes her to the doctor, and they put her hand in a sling. It’s blue, and Lydia tells the doctor she’d prefer green. The doctor smiles at her indulgently – Lydia hates it when people do this – and her mom says, “Why don’t you get yourself something from the vending machine, Lydia?”

“Okay,” Lydia says. She stares at the doctor until he gets uneasy and his smile turns very fake, and then she skips out of his office, leaving her mom to talk and get her prescription.

The hospital is a busy place, and Lydia makes sure to not bump into people. She follows the colourful lines on the floor, tip-toeing over the yellow one. She’s not sure where the vending machines are, but she figures it must be close to the reception desk. Worst case scenario, she’ll ask there.

Somewhere on the way, Lydia must get lost, because the corridors she’s passing are getting less and less crowded. Nobody stops her, though, so Lydia just keeps walking. It’s not a labyrinth, in the worst case scenario she’ll turn around.

Somebody passes Lydia, a tired-looking man talking with a doctor in hushed tones, and Lydia looks after them, wondering if she should ask them for directions. But they seem too engrossed in  their conversation, and the tone of their voices make Lydia anxious and uneasy, so she doesn’t say anything.

Lydia rounds another corner. She's not very big on admitting she's wrong - she takes after her dad in this, her mom insists - but going forward seems like a worse and worse idea.

There is a boy here, though, and he seems just about her age. She supposes she can ask him - it's not as bad as asking an adult. The boy is sitting on the floor, which is strange, and unhygienic. His knees are drawn close to his body, but when he hears Lydia's footsteps, he looks up. He has big eyes, dark and with thick eyelashes, prettier than many girls Lydia's seen. Not prettier than her.

"Are you hurt?" she asks him. She sounds more nosy than concerned; it seems like a good explanation as to why the boy is crying. His nose is running, and Lydia crinkles her own nose in distaste.

The boy just looks at her with those big eyes, so Lydia tries to cross her arms over her chest, remembers about the sling, and gives up.

"I asked you a question," she says. "If you can't answer me, just say so, because I don't feel like wasting time with you."

This time the boy makes a sound, wet and sort of choked. It makes his blotchy face twist comically, and Lydia blinks at him, unimpressed. "If I can't answer," the boy says, "how am I supposed to answer to your question about whether I can answer?"

Lydia is acutely aware of the fact that she's making the same face her parents sometimes make at her, like they want to say don't be a smartass. Only not in those words, of course, because her parents hate cussing and think it's undignified. But Lydia overheard her dad saying "fuck" once, when a failed spell burned his palm, so there's that.

"It speaks after all," Lydia says acidly instead of sharing any of those thoughts. "Are you going to tell me why are you sitting on the floor, then?" She's growing exasperated, and fast. She doesn't even know why she's standing here, still talking, instead of just turning around and walking away.

The boy's face falls. It would be funny, how he can pull an expression like that, if not for an answering drop of Lydia's stomach.

And alright, she may not exactly be sure where she is right now in relation to, say, the closest exit, and her glamours still have a tendency to slipping at the most unfortunate moments, but she knows what this means.

Knowing these things is what being born into a coven means. It's a part of the inherent way in which being a witch affects reality: makes it seem sharper, underlined with a sort of luminescence that Lydia knows most humans can't perceive. And when she looks at the boy, with his unhappy face and teary eyes, something changes in him, slithers just under the surface. It's not much, just a spark triggered by his emotions, not a true bright flame that Lydia can see in the people of her coven, but it's undoubtedly there. The boy is magic, raw and unbeknownst to him.

"It's my mom," the boy says. He gestures awkwardly to the door beside him, and Lydia tiptoes around him, peers into the empty room. She knows what empty rooms with boys crying in front of them mean in hospitals. For a moment, she just stands there, peering inside. The bed is bare, but on the nightstand someone’s left a vase with tulips. Most of the pedals have fallen off, and as Lydia watches, another one drifts towards the floor. "And my dad got grey hair when she was sick, and I think‒ I don't want to be alone."

"Do you have a name?" Lydia asks, almost interrupting him, the words tumbling out of her in a rush of excitement. She's not the head of the coven, but she will be, one day, and the feeling is already inside her. How it feels to recognise someone who should belong to her. It's like a version of what she feels with other witches of her coven - a sense of belonging, but this time, it's underlined with a sharp notes of steal him, steal him, steal him.

The boy tells her his name. Lydia cringes. "Do you have another one?" she asks.

"You're funny," the boy says, though he isn't smiling. "Um, sometimes people call me Stiles. You know, when they can't pronounce my name."

"I'm Lydia," Lydia says. "Family can't always promise to stay, Stiles. But I know who can. And I'd like you to meet them."

She has no idea what she's going to do if Stiles says no. The rush of adrenaline in her doesn't even allow for the possibility. Lydia looks around, wondering how long before Stiles' dad will be back. Surely he won't want to leave Stiles out here for too long. She has no idea why he even did in the first place.

"Lydia? What are you doing here?"

It's usually annoying, to be a pre-teen with parents who can always, always tell where you are because they can sense your magic, but right now, Lydia is relieved and grateful. She spins around to face her mom, who is looking at her suspiciously, like she already knows what Lydia's about to ask for.

"Mom," Lydia says in her best pleading voice, the one that always gets her the best, prettiest things. "This is Stiles." And then, when her mom's eyes flicker to Stiles, still on the floor, and Lydia's sure she's noticed the spark in him, "I want to keep him."

Her mom doesn't tell her Stiles isn't a stray dog, therefore he can't be just taken home by any person who stumbles onto him. She doesn't tell her someone is going to look for Stiles - because just taking boys from hospital corridors is kidnapping. Covens have their own laws, and the law of magic is the strongest of them all.

And anyway, Lydia always gets the best, prettiest things.

"Fine," her mom says. "But he'll be yours to teach. And sometimes just talent isn't enough."

"Fine," Lydia echoes.

Stiles watches them with wide, startled eyes, but he isn't crying anymore, and when Lydia reaches out a hand to him, he takes it.

**_iv._ **

The most important question is, how did Stiles even know where to look for his dad? True, they never kept him under lock and away from technology. He likes computers and other electronic toys, so he always got them. And computers means internet, and internet means unlimited knowledge. But Stiles never even so much as asked about his dad, and they all watched him closely.

Not closely enough. And the thing is, Lydia knows Stiles better than anybody else in the coven. She knows he's not all easy sarcasm and jokes. No, underneath that, he's sharp, and cunning, and sometimes, sometimes she thinks he's more cruel than her. He's also loyal, and Lydia used to think that even if he's not loyal to the head of the coven, he is loyal to her. Now, though, she's beginning to think that maybe he serves nobody but himself.

And it makes her annoyed, fine, but is also makes her proud and thrilled. She can't wait to bring him back, and show him what a stupid idea it is to bite the hand that feeds you. Because she's sure she'll bring him back. Stiles may be smart, but he's got nothing on her. She was born to do the things he only scrapes the surface of.

Once her mom tells her she can go, Lydia starts turning what she knows in her head. She’s almost sure her mom is right, and Stiles is in Beacon Hills. But at the same time she’s a strategist, and she doesn’t want to just go in blind. She expects Stiles to leave traps for her, maybe even ally himself with a coven somewhere in North California so that when Lydia gets there, they’ll be waiting for her, refusing to give Stiles back.

Lydia thinks about going through Stiles’ computer. Maybe he left some hints there, maybe he didn’t, but it’s worth a shot. She passes by her own room, but before she reaches the right door, she hears footsteps behind her.

“Can we talk?” Oliver asks. He’s still dressed in his jacket and with a scarf around his neck. He clearly just came from the outside – or rather, ran, if his quick breathing is any indication. “I’ve heard you lost Stiles‒ And I talked to him before‒”

“What about?” Lydia snaps. She rarely ever talks to Oliver anymore. It was awkward between them when Katherine and he broke up, but it’s just chilly and overly polite now that Lydia’s older sister is married to the head of another coven. Lydia doesn’t know what Oliver expected anyway – Katherine was always supposed to be the diplomatic connection, just like Lydia was always supposed to be the leader. That’s who they were born to become.

She ignores the jab. Oliver had said she lost Stiles. As if Stiles is a pet or a toy, and Lydia is a child who misplaced it.

“You know how he’s‒ Interested in things,” Oliver says uneasily. He always talks in shredded sentences when he’s nervous about something – or when he’s talking to Lydia’s mom. “I lend him books sometimes, about history of covens and so on.”

Lydia nods. The coven’s library is extensive, but still Stiles manages to get interested in some obscure branches of magic that they don’t have enough information about. At some point he’s probably pestered everybody in the coven with his questions. “And what was so interesting to him lately?” she asks.

“Werewolves.” Olives stuffs his hands inside his pockets, seems to reconsider, takes them out again. “He asked me about packs, so I pointed him to that map that was compiled some time ago. It was three days ago, I think. And now he’s gone. I’m not sure if it’s important, but I thought‒ Lydia?”

Lydia doesn’t answer him; she’s already walking. She’s used to thinking fast, and fitting facts together in her head on the spot. She can’t be sure, of course, but it feels like too much of a coincidence. And at the same time it’s just too convenient, almost as if Stiles is leaving her breadcrumbs.

If he wants to play, fine, Lydia can indulge him.

She walks into her room and picks her bag from the floor. She plops down on the bed, fishes out her tablet. Another convenient thing is how someone decided to create a digital library of resources, open to most of the older covens. No coven shares any info they deem private there, but some more general things are easily accessible. Lydia logs in and goes straight for the maps section.

Her emotions are taking the better of her, and just like in Stiles’ room, she can only watch as her magic leeches out the energy out of the tablet. Electricity, life force – it’s all the same, at some level, and Lydia sighs in frustration, dropping the dead device onto the bed. She gets up and goes through the ordeal of logging in on her laptop.

The map is very detailed, and clearly someone spent a lot of time on it. Lydia doesn’t bother with wondering who it was. She types in “Beacon Hills, California” and watches the automatic zoom focus on the right part of the map. There is a little red dot in the middle of a shapeless red outline, and when Lydia rolls the cursor over it, it says “Hale Pack” in tiny black letters. When Lydia clicks it, the additional info in the pop-up window doesn’t help her much.

“Alpha Talia Hale – deceased.

Alpha Laura Hale – deceased.

Alpha Peter Hale – ?”

She tries to look for Peter Hale in the general database, but all she comes up with is another short note: “Peter Hale – current alpha of the Hale Pack?”. There’s much more written about **_her_** , even though she’s not a head of a coven yet.

The sense of mystery fits, at least. Lydia checks Stiles’ computer, just to be on the safe side, but of course it’s wiped clean. The same with his mobile phone, which she finds in his school bag. It’d be too easy if she found Peter Hale in Stiles’ contacts, wouldn’t it? She expects more from him, and he doesn’t disappoint.

That’s good. She can play it like that, too.

**_ii_**.

Lydia shows Stiles the Martin house. “It’s my house, but it’s also the coven’s house,” she explains after they walk out of her own room. “Our coven is very old, and it reaches across almost the entire state, but there is something like an inner and outer circle, covens within the coven and so on. They all ultimately answer to my mom, but not all of them come to our coven meetings.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. He doesn’t say he understands, just nods along, accepting what Lydia tells him at face value. Lydia leads him back to the study.

“That’s why we need so many spare bedrooms,” Lydia says. “In theory, anybody from the coven can stay here whenever they want to. You’ll get your own room, and I’ll teach you everything about covens.”

The door to the study is open, since Lydia’s mom’s waiting for them, but Lydia knocks on the doorframe anyway before they walk in. She makes Stiles sit in the chair opposite the desk, and she goes to perch on the desk herself, between her mom and Stiles.

“I think I’d like to go home now, Mrs Martin,” Stiles says uneasily. “My dad is probably worried, and he had too many reasons to worry anyway.”

“He doesn’t need to worry about you anymore, Stiles,” Lydia’s mom says, and she sounds surprisingly kind and soft. Lydia didn’t think she’d have patience for that. “You’ll be safe with us, and your dad will have time to take care of himself. It’s hard, raising a child on your own.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says uneasily. “But still. I think it’ll be better if I‒”

“Stiles,” she interrupts him. “You **_can’t_** go home. Lydia explained this to you, didn’t she? You’re like her, or like me, or like the other people you’ll get  to know very soon. Your dad may mean well, but he can’t raise a special child like you. We can, and we’ll make sure you’ll be happy. Don’t you want a sister like Lydia? And you don’t want to cause trouble for your dad, do you?”

Stiles nods, slow and uncertain. Lydia smiles at him in encouragement. The truth is, she doesn’t think Stiles has enough magic in him for it to manifest itself without proper training. But she wants to keep him, very much so, so she doesn’t tell him it’s a lie.

“Think about it,” Lydia’s mom says with a smile. “I’m sure you’ll understand it’s all for the better very soon. Go to your room now, and I’ll talk to Lydia for a moment, and then we can all have dinner, alright?”

Stiles nods again and leaves, sneaking glances behind him the whole time. When he closes the door, Lydia sits in his abandoned chair.

“I’ll do what has to be done concerning Stiles’ father, don’t worry about it,” her mom says. “Focus on Stiles. According to our tradition, you had the right to take him.  Maybe it will even work to our advantage, to show those who doubt in the Martin Coven that we can still execute the old laws. But it’s also a great responsibility for you.”

“I understand,” Lydia says. Her mom has repeated this time after time ever since they walked out of the hospital through a back door picked with a spell.  “I’ll look after him.” She grins, sudden and brilliant, and proud. “Isn’t he great, mom? Isn’t he great?”

**_v._ **

From the very beginning, Stiles was a dedicated student. He **_devoured_** knowledge, and what he lacked in the ease with which everything came to Lydia, he made up in dedication. It was interesting, watching someone who hadn’t grown up with the knowledge of all these things being real and tangible, but rather welcoming every new revelation with raised eyebrows and never-ending enthusiasm. Lydia remembers that it took them two weeks to jumpstart his magic, but from there, it’s much, much easier. It was a new experience for Lydia, too. She based what she told Stiles on what she’d been taught, but also on her own tricks and observations.

Every witch develops their own style of magic, but covens usually have a lot of common traits. It’s possible to tell the Martins from, say, the Carter Coven by just the traces of their spells. Stiles is barely just beginning to understand it, Lydia thinks, and he’s mostly too focused on copying what Lydia does, but one day he’ll learn to cast spells in a way that’s easier to him, yet at the same time he will retain something of Lydia in him, too. He’s the first person she brought into the coven, so when she becomes the head, he’ll be the one closest to her in magic. He doesn’t understand how big that is, either. If he did, he wouldn’t have left. Lydia knows what it means, though: together, they’re creating something new out of the old laws of magic.

And because Stiles is hers, Lydia knows she’ll find him, and bring him home. Stiles will never fully grasp the inner workings of a coven. What comes naturally to any young witch, like the way in which they find their place in the coven, Stiles does through trial and error. Maybe he’s just trying to figure out how he fits into the hierarchy? If this is a challenge, well, Lydia will take it.

She packs up some things, much more carefully than Stiles did in his haste, and gets Oliver to put her luggage in the trunk of her car. It takes some manoeuvring, since Lydia’s car was made for speeding down highways, not transporting half a wardrobe.

Finally Oliver manages to slam the lid of the trunk with a loud thud, and Lydia shoots him a glare. There better be no scratch on the paintjob. She had it custom made.

“Call me as soon as you get there,” Lydia’s mom tells her. “Keep away from the law. You know Stiles’ father works as a Sheriff, and we don’t want trouble with humans, and **_definitely_** not with human police force. Consider this a test of your abilities to handle difficult situations. Make me proud. And Lydia?”

“Yes, mom?” Lydia asks impatiently. She jingles the car keys in her hand, and shoots Oliver a warning look. She hasn’t told her mom that she suspects werewolves are involved. Most covens ignore the packs, unless territory debacles get heated. Still, Lydia doesn’t want her mom to know there may be any, even minimal, trouble. She can handle it herself.

“Be careful,” her mom says, and leans in to give Lydia a kiss on the forehead, smoothing her strawberry blonde hair away from her face. “I’ll be waiting for you. Both of you.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, nothing worse than me catching a cold of Biblical proportions can happen to this fic, so updates should come at saner intervals now. 
> 
> Mind the warnings, please, and let me know if something should be tagged and isn't!

**_iii._ **

The easiest way to slip under the coven’s radar is to use the most obvious routes. If Stiles took his car, or stole another one, they’d track him down before he even crossed the city border. Stiles could use all the tricks he knows to make his car impossible to find by magic, and yet someone in the Martin Coven would still work out some way. They always do. Those people are ridiculously good at magic.

Stiles likes to think if he’s not better, than at least he’s smarter. As the matter of fact, the only person he worries about is Lydia. Lydia is the prettiest, brightest, most vicious girl he knows. There’s no point in hoping he’ll hide away from her permanently, but maybe just winning some time will be enough.

There is no point in begging Lydia to give him time. She won’t care. Stiles doesn’t even bother with imagining how that conversation would go, it’s so obvious to him: to Lydia, any link Stiles might’ve had with his father was severed when he was eleven, and there is no issue there. If Stiles told her that he has to make sure his father is safe, she’ll roll her eyes and tell him it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Stiles is safe, and the coven is safe.

Engaging Lydia in a game is another story entirely. Lydia suffers from the same syndrome all children spoiled beyond all reason do – and it’s even more severe, because Lydia doesn’t simply have anything money can buy; she also gets everything magic can provide. In other words, Lydia is perpetually bored. School holds no interest to her, and she knows more about theory of magic than the head of their coven does. When a challenge presents itself, Lydia always accepts it. And Stiles is her favourite challenge.

Stiles can always count on one thing: in her own, twisted way, Lydia has feelings for him. They may be possessiveness underlined with a coven bond, but they’re undoubtedly strong. Stiles trusts her to be bored enough, proud enough, sentimental enough to go after him herself. At least when she finds him, he’ll have enough time to gather his resources and maybe‒

The point is, not many people in the coven would show him the same courtesy. The covens as a whole comes first. Its specific members can be sacrificed for the common good.

Stiles has a lot of time to think about it all on the bus taking him to Beacon Hills. It’s not a new idea for him: he knows the coven isn’t exactly a healthy environment to grow up in, and can twist your perception. It’s like the crazy bounces off of people and grows stronger and stronger. He’d try talking about it to Lydia, when he was younger, and she’d mostly indulge him, but in the end, she always said he didn’t understand, because he wasn’t born into the coven.

Maybe he understands better because he’s an outsider, and his judgement isn’t clouded.

With a sigh, Stiles presses his forehead to the chilly bus window. The man sitting next to him tried engaging him in small talk before, but now he’s asleep, snoring a little. Stiles doesn’t want to trade niceties right now.

Yes, perspective does him good, too. He’s not above admitting that the coven has little influence over him, but Lydia does. He researched glamours thoroughly, and he’s almost sure it’s not that. Not magic, just pathological co-dependency. The thought makes Stiles’ lips twist in a wry smile.

The bus ride is long, and uneventful. It lasts the whole night, and Stiles should probably try catching some sleep, but he’s too high-wired. The herbs prepared for him by Eloise on a bi-weekly basis help him focus, but he’s trying to cut on the dosage, since he knows he won’t be able to find them in Beacon Hills, and he’ll have to keep his head clear regardless.

Stiles arrives in Beacon Hills just before sunrise.

**_i._ **

The summer before Stiles and Lydia and supposed to start ninth grade is sticky-hot and lazy. Lydia refuses to go out of the air-conditioned house. “The A/C makes my skin dry,” she complains from where she’s lounging on the couch, and Stiles lifts his head from the floor to look at the forearm she’s presenting. It looks great to him. Lydia looks great. “But it’s better than getting burned out there.”

It’s not that Stiles is oh so eager for a sunstroke. He’s not. But he was hoping they could make go swimming one of these days. Not even sunbathing, since Lydia would never go for that – Jean Martin, her cousin, suggested it once, and Lydia almost rolled her eyes out of their sockets during the skin cancer lecture – just outside.

“How about in the evening?” Stiles asks hopefully. “When it cools down a little.”

Lydia considers this for a moment, peering at her own legs, probably assessing the quality of skin there. She hums in consideration. “We could go at night,” she says.

“Break in?” Stiles asks, rolling onto his side to see her better.

There is a small smile tugging at Lydia’s lips, but she tries to hide it. Stiles gets distracted by watching the shiny pink lip-gloss she’s been using the whole summer. It makes her look older, definitely older than Stiles, with his shorn hair and puppy fat. That’s probably what she’s going for.

“Well,” Lydia says. “I did just get myself a new swimming suit, and it’d be a loss if it went to waste. I think I’m going to catch a nap now. See you in the evening.”

She rolls off the couch, and from his perspective on the floor, Stiles watches her bare feet pad away from him and out of the room. He thinks he could use a nap, too.

It cools down after the sun sets, but it’s still warm enough that Stiles’ shirt sticks to his back on the walk to the public swimming pool. A light breeze picks up, so at least they’re able to breathe. Stiles was actually voting for joyriding Katherine’s car, but Katherine overheard him saying it, so that plan went down the drain.

The local swimming pool isn’t exactly highly monitored. It’s just a hole in the ground and a scattering of buildings surrounded by mesh fence, with a lone lifeguard seat looming precariously close to the water. Older kids from their neighbourhoods volunteer sometimes as lifeguards, but Stiles doesn’t think he’d like watching over a bunch of kids learning how to swim.

The whole security system surrounding the swimming pool consists of four big spotlights activated by motion detectors. It’s more to scare people away than anything else, since there is no guard to react to the lights turning on, but Lydia makes them all go out with a silent hiss. Stiles is standing so close to her he can feel the air going colder as she sucks the energy out of the lights.

Sometimes when Lydia is annoyed, Stiles can feel the energy getting sucked out of entire rooms at a time, and his own magic answering. Stiles is a little better at controlling his emotions. It’s been **_weeks_** since the last time he made any light bulbs burst.

Lydia pushes her bag at Stiles, and wraps her fingers around the lock on the gate. It rusts under her touch, and Lydia raises her eyebrows at Stiles until he yanks and breaks it off. He holds the gate open for Lydia. There’s no point in expecting her to do **_any_** manual labour. Stiles is surprised she even carried her own bag here.

They undress next to the edge of the pool, and Stiles spreads out the towels he took out of Lydia’s bag. He keeps sneaking glances at Lydia the whole time, but who can blame him? He’s fourteen, and she’s in a pretty blue bikini. Her pale skin looks translucent in the dark. Stiles feels terribly self-conscious in his swimming trunks.

“Come on, then,” Lydia says. She sits on the edge of the pool and swings her legs back and forth in the water. “It’s warm,” she adds before lowering herself in. The water on this edge reaches to her collarbones.

Stiles jumps in after her, splashing water everywhere. It earns him a swat on the arm and a glare, but Stiles is grinning, spitting water out.

“Kath would never come here with me,” Lydia says after they swim for a while. Her hair’s plastered to her cheeks and back, and Stiles is surprised she isn’t complaining about chlorine.

“She’s big on obeying the law,” Stiles says. He leans with his elbow on the edge of the pool, but Lydia keeps treading water. “Maybe it’s because she want to be a **_lawyer_**.”

Most people Stiles knows have a very open relationship with human laws. If it’s not specified by the coven’s rules, and it won’t endanger the coven, they’re allowed to do more or less anything. Part of it is definitely the feeling of invincibility that comes from being able to do things other people don’t even know are **_possible_**. And Stiles isn’t saying he doesn’t get the appeal. He likes it, and his conscience doesn’t bug him about it. It’s just that sometimes he wonders what stops people like Anne Martin from going one step further and taking over the government instead of being satisfied with ruling just a coven.

He can’t come up with any reason beyond “It’d be too much trouble”.  It should scare him more than it does. He’s not afraid for the humankind or anything. He’s just curious.

“Still,” Lydia says, swimming up to him. “Sometimes you’re worth the fuss.”

“Gee, Lydia,” Stiles says. “You’re spoiling me with all that sweet talk.” He clears his throat, and adds, aiming for casual, “Is it why you keep me around? I’m entertaining?”

Usually when he asks about it, Lydia narrows her eyes and gets snappish. Questions starting with “why” aren’t her favourite ones, to put it mildly. She hates having to explain herself. But she had a good day, and seems relaxed, and Stiles is very curious. It’s worth a shot.

Lydia doesn’t answer him right away, but she doesn’t pull a face, either, so Stiles doesn’t lose hope. Instead she hops onto the edge of the pool, much like she sat before, and throws a towel around her arms. “I knew from the very start that I should steal you,” Lydia says. She reaches out to run her hand through Stiles’ wet hair. It’s the usual non-answer she gives him when she feels like saying anything at all, so Stiles sighs, ready to let it drop. His eyes snap back to Lydia when she hums in consideration, though. “You’re just like me, Stiles. Only my opposite.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Stiles says, leaning slightly into Lydia’s touch. “If some things are the same, they can’t be‒”

“If you say so,” Lydia says dismissively, and Stiles realises he just accidentally made sure Lydia won’t share anything more with him for the next few **_years_**. “My toes are all wrinkly, look.” She kicks her leg out of the water to show him, and Stiles inspects her wriggling toes obediently. “Let’s go home.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says with a nod, taking Lydia’s outstretched hand to haul himself out of the water. “Let’s.”

**_ii._ **

By the time Stiles finally finishes with his essay, his head is pounding like someone’s knocking on it from the inside. He gathers the books he managed to scatter all over the library table with one hand, pressing his other palm to his head. It doesn’t exactly help, but the pressure lessens a little under the touch of his cold fingers.

Stiles throws the strap of his bag over his shoulder and picks up the books. He carries them all to the librarian’s desk, and then walks out of the library and out of the school. The parking lot is almost empty. Some people are still having baseball training, but Lydia’s car is long since gone. Stiles isn’t surprised – he didn’t expect her to wait up.

He jams his hand into his pocket and pulls out his car keys. He was almost late this morning, so he’s parked as far away from the entrance as possible. When he gets there, his head is one never-ending painful throb, and he’s nauseous with his migraine. And to top it all off, there’s a guy standing by his car, hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched.

The guy almost definitely doesn’t go to their school. The only other social circle Stiles belongs to is the coven, but something tells him the guy doesn’t belong to some sort of extended branch of it. He looks normal enough – dark curly hair, a red sweatshirt. Stiles doesn’t like his eyes, though. They’re unfocused and shadowed, and have a sort of glaze to them. It makes Stiles want to snap his fingers to check the guy’s responses, or maybe see if he’s got a fever.

“Are you Stiles Stilinski?” the guy asks, and Stiles freezes.

“No,” he says, and it’s not a lie. Stiles might’ve occupied the same life as that boy in the hospital once, but he doesn’t anymore. He’s Stiles Martin, of the Martin Coven, and he doesn’t need to look back. There’s no point in looking back.

“I’m pretty sure you are,” the guy says easily. His back straightens, and he looks a little more lucid, but still mostly like a drug junkie. “I have something for you,” he adds. “An‒ invitation, he said.”

Before Stiles asks who’s “he”, the guy pulls one of his hands out of his pocket, closed into a fist. Stiles outstretches his own hand palm up automatically, which could turn out to be a stupid idea, and the guy drops something into it.

It’s a small silvery badge, cold to the touch and dirty with fingertips. “What?” Stiles asks, his eyebrows shooting up, but the guy just shrugs. Stiles turns the badge slowly in his hand, touches the points of the star.

The badge belongs to the Sheriff of Beacon Hills California. Stiles has no idea where Beacon Hills is exactly, but he does know its Sheriff, apparently. Stiles slides his thumb over the name, and then drags his eyes back to the guy.

“I don’t know a John Stilinski,” Stiles says. This may not be a lie, either. He doesn’t know his father anymore. All he knows is that he’s supposed to keep away, in order for his father to stay safe from Anne Martin.

“Yeah, I can hear your heart when you lie.” The guy flashes his golden eyes at Stiles briefly, and Stiles sets his jaw. “And I’m pretty sure the name ‘Stiles’ isn’t all that popular, and it’s on your ID.”

“How do you know what’s‒” Stiles trails off when the guy hands him his ID back. He has no idea when the guy managed to pickpocket it, but he snatches it back with an angry glare. “Look, dude, whoever you are, you’re making a really big mistake here.”

“I’m Scott,” Scott says, easily ignoring the thinly veiled insult. “I don’t want to drag you to Beacon Hills by force, but if I have to, well.” Scott shrugs. “He won’t like it. The invite is still open, though. Consider it. My alpha just wants to show you something. It may interest you.”

“What?” Stiles asks again. “Look, if I take it to my coven, you’ll be lucky if they just chase you out of the city for threatening me.”

Scott slams the badge on the hood of Stiles’ car, and Stiles winces in sympathy. “You said ‘if’, not ‘when’,” Scott points out, and then he slouches again, puts his hands in his pockets, and walks away.

Stiles watches him for a while. He thinks about just leaving the badge, but in the end he takes it, hides it at the bottom of his bag.

When he still had a father, and that father was a permanent fixture in his life, they were both as human as it gets. There definitely weren’t any werewolves involved.

The coven won’t approve of Stiles just taking a road trip to California, Stiles knows – its head **_definitely_** won’t approve. The truth is, Stiles couldn’t care less. They’re not the ones he cares about. Lydia, on the other hand – Stiles worries about Lydia’s opinion. Not just because Lydia will make earrings out of his ears if he so much as suggests that he wants to sneak out to check on his dad. His entire universe literally revolves around her. He does whatever Lydia tells him to, goes wherever she goes, even wears only the clothes she picks out for him.

He always lets Lydia control him. He’s fine with it. But just this once, it feels like there’s something bigger at stake than all the oaths and all the loyalty he owes her.

**_iv._ **

The Beacon Hills Central Station is a drab affair of asphalt, concrete, and an array of old buses going places Stiles has never heard of. He's one of the three bleary-eyed people who get off at this stop, but the two women head straight for the waiting area, and Stiles turns to the exit. The inside of his mouth tastes like he's been licking the bus seat the whole way here. He's sleepy, sticky, and tired.

Scott's waiting for him by the exit. He looks worse than Stiles feels, which is a form of twisted consolation. Actually, he looks worse than he did the last time Stiles' saw him. Being closer to home doesn't work for him, apparently.

"How did you know I'm coming?" Stiles asks. He thinks it's impressive, in a way, but mostly creepy. The whole thing, coming here, feels less and less like a good idea.

Scott shrugs. He has this look on his face, like he barely even recognises Stiles, and Stiles realises he knows this zombie-like quality of movements. The people who go through Anne Martin's office when she's in a foul mood sneak down the corridors with the same hunch to their shoulders and blank, scared expressions.

"It's the only bus that could bring you here," Scott says finally, when Stiles keeps staring at him stubbornly.

"Okay," Stiles says. Good enough, he supposes. "So what, you'd stand here at ass o'clock every day?"

He's not in the mood for idle chit chat, but Scott's silence is unnerving. Scott shrugs again, as if to say that yeah, why not, he's got nothing better to do. Stiles rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. Shit, but he's tired.

"Take me to your leader, then," he says, and Scott turns on his heel and starts walking.

It turns out that Scott has a car, an old Honda, and he drives it with the same walking dead enthusiasm he does everything else. Stiles watches the speedometer as it tells him Scott is going precisely the speed limit; there isn't anything interesting outside the window.

They pass through neighbourhoods of similar, small town houses, and Stiles tries to imagine himself living in one of those with his father. The face he conjures is half remembered and half guessed, and Stiles can't recall how he used to fit into a normal suburban life. It's strange, really. He remembers where they used to keep glasses in the house he lived in with his parents, but when he thinks about spending quiet afternoons in, or doing his homework at a desk, his mind supplies him helpfully with pictures of the Martin house and Lydia, always Lydia.

Scott pulls over next to a house painted in green. There's another car already in the driveway, and a bike leaning against the house's wall. If an alpha lives here, he must be vastly unimpressive. Stiles has met an alpha whose territory more or less matches that of the Martin Coven. The werewolf's suit had looked like it cost more than this house and both the cars together.

And fine, Stiles has heard that money doesn't equal power. He's also been living with the most powerful family he's ever met, and he can testify that it helps a whole lot. Or maybe money just happens to people with power? It doesn't feel like the right time to be pondering this. He can ask Lydia what she thinks la-- Well, he shouldn't be pondering that, either.

"Take your shoes off," Scott tells him as soon as they cross the threshold. He leans over and pulls his own sneakers off, arranges them neatly next to other shoes already leaned by the door. Stiles does the same.

A small army of maids couldn't keep a house as clean as this one is. Stiles feels bad for walking over the shiny floors even in his socks. It's strangely intimidating, this feeling that if he took a black light to every single surface in the house, he wouldn't find a single fingerprint.

Scott leads him to the kitchen, which isn't exactly the place people usually receive their more or less blackmailed petitioners in. Family friends, maybe. Guests.

The kitchen is, of course, small but spotless. Even the toasts on the plate are in a perfect stack. Stiles stares dumbly at the on-going breakfast - who has breakfast at this hour? - for a long few seconds before he drags his eyes to the two people sitting at the table.

The woman looks a lot like Scott. And by that, Stiles doesn't mean just her hair or eyes, but also the empty gaze and tense line of her lips. She has laugh lines around her eyes, like she used to smile a lot, but doesn't anymore. She doesn't even acknowledge Stiles or Scott.

The man - the alpha - is perfectly at ease. He's handsome, Stiles supposes, with intense eyes and hair that is immaculately combed back. He's also smiling at Stiles, in a way that Stiles doesn't like much more than the non-expressions of the rest of the pack. It's the sort of smile people usually save for expensive trinkets someone got them for their birthday.

"Coffee?" the alpha asks, and Stiles finds himself nodding before it even fully registers with him. He clears his throat.

"Yeah, sure," he says.

The alpha looks at the woman, and she jumps to her feet like a spring kept taut for too long. Stiles slides into a chair the alpha indicates for him with a queasy feeling in his stomach. The woman produces a mug and pours the coffee in quick, efficient movements.

The family atmosphere, albeit unarguably pathological, makes it hard for Stiles to come up with a conversation starter that’d lead to them discussing his reason for coming to Beacon Hills. Since there’s no way for him to do it with class, he goes for blunt instead.

“Why did you **_invite_** me here?” he asks, pouring as much sarcasm into the word as its two syllables would hold.

The Sheriff’s badge is at the bottom of his backpack, which he now nudges with his foot. The alpha looks down like he can see through the fabric, and then back at Stiles. “Allow me to introduce you to my pack, Stiles. You already know Scott, don’t you? The lovely lady of the house is his mother, Melissa McCall.” He reaches out and pats Melissa’s hand. She doesn’t flinch, seems like she hasn’t even noticed it. “My nephew, Derek, is busy and couldn’t join us. I’m sure he’s very sorry about it. And my name is Peter Hale.”

“That’s nice,” Stiles says flatly. “But not exactly what I asked, so‒”

“I’m sure you’ve noticed that three wolves and one human do not a big enough pack make. Especially with a family of hunters in town.”

“Again, not what I‒”

“Therefore, I’m in the process of expanding my pack.” This time Stiles doesn’t chime in when Peter pauses to breathe. There seems to be no point. “I thought you may be interested in the newest addition.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “You mean my father,” he says. He’s not even guessing, he doesn’t have to. Peter’s growing, predatory smile tells him everything. “I don’t give a shit about your pack politics. But if you change him against his will, and drag him into your battle with the hunters, you’ll have bigger trouble on your hands.” He makes it sound like the threat is coming from him, like he and the coven would do something to Peter if he went against the rules. He’s not on their territory, and to be honest, Stiles is pretty sure Anne Martin wouldn’t care either way.

But there are werewolves who care, and hunters who’d rip Peter to shreds if he were to break the code so openly like that. Peter has to know it.

“What if I told you the Sheriff agreed?” Peter asks with an arch of his eyebrow.

“I want to talk to him,” Stiles says, though the thought makes his stomach turn. Somewhere at the back of his head, he planned to avoid the possibility, even if it was never a conscious plan. He thinks if he talks to his dad, he may not be able to just walk away. And he knows he’ll have to. If he stays longer than is absolutely necessary, Peter Hale’s pack’s going to be the smallest of their problems.

“We were planning on doing this after lunch,” Peter says, tapping his fork on the edge of the plate. The clinking sound makes Stiles’ teeth ache. “But I suppose we can change our plans a little, can’t we, dear?”

Melissa’s eyes dance between Peter and Stiles for a moment, like she isn’t sure what is the correct answer. Finally, she nods minutely, and Peter drops the fork.

“Perfect,” Peter decides. “Excuse us, then.”

He gets up from his chair, and Stiles does the same. They pass Melissa, once again turned into stone, and Scott, who hasn’t moved from his position next to the kitchen door. Stiles wonders idly if maybe when they’re not in Peter’s immediate line of vision, they switch off.

Peter doesn’t lead him out of the house, like Stiles expected him to, just upstairs. Stiles keeps rubbing his palms on his thighs, trying to get rid of the itch of dormant magic. Peter knocks on a pair of doors and doesn’t wait for a reply, just pushes them open and gestures Stiles inside with a wide, over-exaggerated swipe of his arm.

Stiles stumbles inside, now almost sure he’s going to be sick, and just hoping it won’t be here, on the immaculate floor.

The man who stands up from a chair in the corner of the room is a complete stranger to Stiles. Stiles dismisses him as Peter’s aforementioned nephew. No, he barely even notices him. He’s too busy with the most terrifying thought so far: the other man, the one sitting on a spare bed in the tiny room, is also a stranger to him now.

“Stiles?” his father asks weakly, and Stiles swallows bile in his throat. He has no idea what he’s doing here, in this moment. Why did he agree to come. “Son, are you really‒ Stiles.”

“We’ve decided to speed up the processing of your request,” Peter says.

“You said I can talk to him first,” Stiles’ father says, which is exactly what Stiles was going to say.

“There will be time for that later, don’t worry,” Peter says easily. “It’s just a formality.”

Stiles takes a step closer – he’s not sure if he’s going to step between his father and Peter, or something else – and Derek’s fingers close around his shoulder, yank him back. Stiles tries to get away automatically, yanks his arm, but Derek doesn’t budge. He snarls when Stiles’ skin comes alive with magic, but the pain it must be causing him isn’t enough to make him let go.

All Stiles can do is watch as Peter inclines his head, as if he’s taking a bow before a performance, and takes Stiles’ father’s wrist in his fingers, almost delicately. He pushes the shirt sleeve out of the way, and his eyes come alight with red.

“Just wait a moment,” Stiles says, “this is‒”

He could swear he **_hears_** the wet sound of teeth sinking into flesh. His father’s eyes slip closed, eyelids fluttering, face twisting in pain or concentration, it’s hard to tell.

And then Peter pulls back, his mouth open in a vulgar, bloody smile. “All done,” he says, and Stiles watches his father slip back onto the bed, easy and slow like falling asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> The name of the fic comes from a plant called hawthorn, quite obviously. If you want to know my reasoning behind it, I suggest researching it in the context of both Celtic and Greek mythology. 
> 
> Katherine Martin doesn't have a name in canon (yet). However, for the purposes of this fic I'm borrowing from [this](http://only-on-days-that-end-in-y.tumblr.com/post/42553242287/fanfic-in-this-light-and-on-this-evening) amazing Katherine/Laura Hale story you should read. 
> 
> If you want to talk, see what I'm obsessing over, or see how the fic is going, I'm on Tumblr as [talktoyourcactus](http://www.talktoyourcactus.tumblr.com). The tag I'll be using for the story is "Hawthorn". 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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